Darkness Within The Light of a Champion
by KeokiFirebird
Summary: Cloud is searching for Tifa, Aeris watches helplessly from above. A new dark enemy. RR
1. Darkness

Please stay with me.  
  
Why?  
  
Just for another day.  
  
But I see no reason too.  
  
I need one more day next to you.  
  
We'll have other days.  
  
Honestly, I need to love you one more time.  
  
Perhaps I'll stay one more day. Just one!  
  
...  
  
Running atop a hillside at speeds unheard of to a normal man, he ran from point a to point b as some would say, but to him those points were his life. Life starts and ends, just as abruptly as the beginning of a new light enters the realm of the living, it flickers and fades away to another plane of existence that most aren't sure if it exists or not. Does it exist? Most aren't sure whether these planes exist or not, but to those who live there, if you can call it that, they know It's true and in full existence. To one special girl who was taken before she could live the life she wanted to live, and to this one girl the life she wanted was next to the man running. She would run to the end of everything with him, in her own right she did, but she didn't get to stay with him as she hoped. She knew she would be ripped away from him when she made her choice to go on ahead on her own. She even asked him not to come, but she still deep down in the recesses of her caring heart, she wanted him to come. She knew point c would come one day, but when. Maybe she can make point c come sooner. What is point c?  
  
He ran and ran till his sweat poured from every inch of his body, he knew he had to make it there quicker than he ever has, but in the absence of most of his training, was he ready? "I have to be." He said to himself.  
  
"I got to make it. Soon! NOW! I should already be there." He ran and ran, but felt that it was getting farther and farther rather than closer and closer. The weight of his enormous sword bearing down on his back as he pushed his legs farther with every stride, his blue orbs gazing the landscape ahead avoiding any random encounter with a vile creature that can slow his ever pushing speed, to him every step was in important. Each one had a beat as it harmonized itself onto the ground.  
  
"Almost there."  
  
She watched helplessly wishing she can cast some sort of spell to help him, perhaps haste she thought idly as she dropped down on the glass ground. She could see through it, she wished it. She wished to be able to continue gazing down upon the world through glass. In this realm you can have anything you want the way you want it. Well except of course anything that affects the living, so really, is it everything?  
  
Upon reaching his destination he realizes everything is somehow distorted. As if every color was inverted. Everything was hues of gray, and darkness seemed to be the reigning champion.  
  
"What happened? I... I was... in daytime." He spread his legs for stability, the sound of the ground scratching the bottom of his boots. "Tifa!" he cried out. As he pulls his buster sword from its strap accidently breaking the leather strap, but that doesn't matter. His surroundings continue to morph into various shapes, but all of it was smoke.  
  
"TIFA!" he tried again. He cautiously stepped forward with his sword out in the ready in front of him.  
  
"Stop your incessant crying child." A dark deep commanding voice sounds through the hallowness of the surroundings.  
  
"Who are you? What have you done to Tifa? Giver her back to me now!"  
  
"I said STOP!" The ground rumbled.  
  
The ground under him broke and he fell to his side still holding his sword. His shoulder felt a sharp pain as it grinded itself into a rock, but this doesn't phase him. Jump back up he readies himself again. "I said who are you!?"  
  
"Child I can destroy you whenever I want to."  
  
"Then why don't you?" he asks.  
  
"Simple, first I need to ask what is your name champion?"  
  
His eyes shift from corner to corner look around him to see if maybe the darkness breaks for a moment, all he will need to know where to attack. "Cloud... Cloud Strife."  
  
"Champion Cloud, I have heard of you, you have defeated many of my dark creatures and abominations. I grow weary of this thorn. I shall use you to my benefit and you will have nothing you can do against it. Do you understand?" Two fiery orbs appear in the darkness but nothing more.  
  
Cloud squinting slightly from the surprisingly bright eyes distanced in front of him, wondering to himself how those eyes don't reflect anything of the face they belong to. Holding the sword with one hand he sticks his other hand in his pocket and pulls out a round objecting glinting from the light of the eyes of fire. Cloud places the materia into the slot on his sword. A dry click is head.  
  
"Do you really believe you can attack me?"  
  
"I guess I would have to find out wouldn't I?" Cloud challenges the voice.  
  
"Before you throw your life away to me, I ask of you to listen to me, if not I will rip you apart and feast on your corpse. Do not PESTER ME ANY LONGER!"  
  
The ground shakes, but this time cloud holds his stance. "What is it?"  
  
"I need you to... get rid of something, really... someone."  
  
"Who?" the spikey hero asks defiantly  
  
"You will know in due time, and when you do, you must get rid of that person." The eyes focus squarely on cloud.  
  
"Where's Tifa?" He asks stepping forward slightly.  
  
"Do this for me, and you'll have you precious Tifa back. If it makes you feel better she put up quite a fight with my minions, but their injuries only feed their bloodlust to feed on her.  
  
"Any other." He pauses and chooses a better word. "Rules?"  
  
"The only rule is to not defy me or I shall see to it that neither you or the girl will live. Now be off I have important matters to handle. I repeat do not defy me."  
  
Suddenly everything turns into a large whirlpool under his feet and take him with it. He realizes he's being flushed, flushed out, but how? Desperately he tries to swim out of this dark liquid but the ferocity of the whirlpool drags him under. Without enough time for him to take one last breath he feels his consciousness flee from him and only finds darkness.  
  
Hello all, I hope you enjoyed the story. If you can please review, and for those of you who are upset with the stories I haven't finished, please harass me so I can finish them after this story. Do enjoy and read my other stories if you like. 


	2. Reunited

I have to go now.  
  
Please stay with me more.  
  
But I have to save someone.  
  
Another day please just another day. I missed you for so long.  
  
I- I was supposed to save someone... I know I was.  
  
I can't live without you.  
  
I'll stay... for another day. I need to think over what I'm supposed to do  
  
"C-cloud?" a woman's peaceful voice rings softly in his ears. "Cloud, is that you?"  
  
He opens his eyes only to find his vision blurred. "Wh-Who are you?" He asks as he rubs his eyes to remove the blur like one would remove a written mistake, but before she can answer back, his eyes open and fall focused on the woman he thought he wouldn't be able to see for a long time. "AERIS!"  
  
She smiled faintly as if happy with the reunion but sad due to circumstances. "Hello Cloud. I'm... happy to see you again."  
  
"What's wrong?" He realizes he's in a dark and putrid world, flames bursting out of pipes that point in all directions, sheer humidity and heat felt rippling at ones skin. Loud crashes of metal hitting against other metal audibly heard through all the dark sewer like tunnels. Occasionally if you stare long enough you can see something moving in one direction or another, but it's better left unnoticed. He then repeats after the moments he spent taking in the surroundings.  
  
"Cloud, I don't know what's going on but you're not supposed to be here." She says closing her eyes hiding away a tear.  
  
"Here? Where's here? I-I don't understand what you're saying." He gets up and corrects his black tank, and wipes of some of the dirt and grime on his black faded jeans.  
  
"Cloud, I don't know how to tell you, but... you're... you're in the underworld."  
  
"What do you mean underworld? I'm dead!?!" He says attempting to hold composure, but can't manage to hide the fact that his heart is beating beyond the speed limit of any other heart.  
  
"No, you're not dead, but... you're not alive either." She says as a soft tear runs down her cheek.  
  
"How can that possibly work?"  
  
"You don't exist... you're... a chrono-knight now."  
  
"What the fuck is a chrono-knight!?" he shovels out of his mouth in disbelief. His mind racing laps around his entire being.  
  
"A chrono-knight cloud... you can only become one when you serve an immortal, you alone have the power to destroy another immortal. You and any other chrono-knight... but you can still be destroyed by any means possible. I don't understand how and why he came after you, but he did." Aeris pulls a piece of cloth and excuses herself.  
  
"No it's ok, why?" he watches her spit into the piece of cloth, and she uses the cloth to wipe off the smudges of dirt on his face. "My mother used to do this to me... I always hated it."  
  
"So why do you let me?" She continues her small but caring task while avoiding his eyes, but he just stays quiet and shrugs. "There, you look just as cute as always." She turns around cheerily. "Ok I'm going to go with you."  
  
"What? Wait!? I don't understand what's going on but you're not coming with me. It's too dangerous." He tries to convince her, but honestly he wants her around.  
  
"Cloud, you don't even know what's going on, and you don't even know if its dangerous, either way you can't convince me otherwise... without me you'll just walk around aimlessly." She grabs her pink backpack and straps it on.  
  
"Won't I need a backpack too?" suddenly a backpack appears out of nowhere and drops on his head. "Ow!" Then he clears his throat. "Err I mean how... how do... how come you're here?"  
  
"I'm always watching cloud."  
  
He stares at her dumbfounded with what next to say.  
  
"Master did you expect the girl to come to his aide?" said the man in the leather armor with long flowing brown hair.  
  
"Of course Victor, do you think me a mortal... such as yourself? No dear no Victor, I only influence the situation more. That is all you need to know, stop pestering me with you foolish questions."  
  
"Master would you like me to do anything?" He pushes off the wall. "Anything requiring my expertise?" Placing his hands behind his back, the crest on his leather armor glinting his family's sign of power, the armor covers all of his chest, back and abdomen. The leather greaves, and leather boots protecting his legs.  
  
"When I want you to do something for me, I shall ask you fool. Begone, go rid yourself with another tart."  
  
"If you wish master." Smirking at the thought of engaging into another woman, he turns around and walks towards the hall.  
  
"So what is it I umm... do?" Cloud asks. Walking beside the creepy corridors of the underworld, trying to ignore the surroundings, as well as the feeling of something always watching them, he continues to try to converse with her.  
  
"You make beings fall from time."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You erase mortals, immortals anything... from time itself. You place them in a void." She continues forward, with her hair swaying in movement.  
  
Cloud can't remember how often he thought about seeing her. How often he dreamt of her. How often he wished himself dead, but now... what about now?  
  
"Cloud what are you thinking about?"  
  
The spikey haired warrior realized he wasn't walking and Aeris was facing him. "Oh... sorry. No... nothing. Don't worry about it."  
  
"Cloud... I missed you too." She leapt forward and embraced the man she always missed for so long.  
  
"I..." He placed one arm around her. 


End file.
